TEDxArabia 2011
I was invited by Big_Hass to attended TEDxArabia on Thursday October 6th 2011, and I am glad I attended, it was interesting to say the least. The Theme of the event was “Live Your Dream”.
Registration was a bit lost, cards were everywhere, and… they couldn’t find the one with my name on it (or my friend Hameed’s card)
I did miss the first part due to me being late, but I didn’t miss much I guess.
Some talks were great, some were boring, and when the rep of the “angel sponsor” (Nestle) started talking, she almost made me hate coffee.
My friend Hassan gave a nice talk about hip-hop and what it should represent (hint: it is not the garbage on mainstream media, it’s a little more like this, or this). My friend Aziz Hamza also gave a presentation about a new iphone/ipad application of hijazi proverbs his company developed.
Ahmad Almehairy, gave one of the most memorable talks of the evening, encouraging small business, and encouraging investors to invest in small businesses. After checking him out online, it turns out he is a VP of a “Private Wealth Management Office LMC invests in Venture Capital, Real Estate & Public Equities. Slogan: Investing for the prosperity of our nation” so basically it was a sales pitch… most of the talks were somewhat more or less sales pitches.
The Smile of Swords as she translated her name (Dr. Basma Alseyofi) was also a very energetic and motivating speaker who wrote a few books and serves as a consultant on many governmental projects.
The nice thing about the event was a live music performance by a group called AlFarabi, who performed their song “story of a king” their musical style was fusion, the song was in Arabic, you can check out a studio version here.
There is a new cartoon coming out about the companions of the prophet, the main hero of the cartoon is the companion Bilal, a freed African slave and the first caller of the athan. The interesting thing is that they used forensic art to find what Bilal and his wife, and other companions looked like, which would be more authentic than seeing a light skinned actor with blackface playing the part as they usually do in films and series about the period.
I am also excited about a new art gallery which will take place in Jeddah in January 2012, I forgot the name, but not the date
All in all it was a good event, thanks to big Hass for inviting me, and thanks for the organizers of the event for making it all possible, it was way better than the videos I saw of last year’s event, and I know if it is done next year, it will be even better… and I hope I get an invitation to the event next year also… either that or I am giving a talk… the last guy on stage gave a talk because he updated a page on “the definition of genius” on Wikipedia.
There was also a moment of silence while standing up for the passing away of Steve Jobs, who without his vision, none of this would’ve probably been possible.

















